A Dream of Falling
by firstcatfish
Summary: Sam wakes up alone in the panic room. Tag to Swan Song and missing scene from Like a Virgin.


**Title:** A Dream of Falling

**Summary**: Sam wakes up alone in the panic room. Tag to Swan Song and missing scene from Like a Virgin.

**Warning:** None

**Disclaimers: **Italicized words at the beginning taken directly from the episode Swan Song. I do not own either episode represented here. Don't own the boys either, more's the pity.

**A/N:** This little ficlet has been unbeta'd so I apologize for any mistakes you may find. Enjoy.

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"_Sam, It's not going to end this way. Step back."_

"_You're gonna have to make me."_

"_I have to fight my brother, Sam. Here and now. It's my destiny._

As Sam's gaze left Adam's, it fell on his brother. The memories that had flooded through him mere minutes ago filled him again and the terror in his heart was replaced with the peace and strength being with Dean had always provided. He looked hungrily at his brother's face, memorizing his features. His mind saw not the swollen bloody features, but the strong spirit of the man who had raised him and loved him unconditionally…the one who made all of this worth it.

This was for Dean. Smiling slightly, he stepped back into the hole. The feel of Adam's hand on his arm, trying to pull him back merely strengthened his resolve. Grabbing Adam's sleeve, he gave a strong yank, causing both of them to tumble backwards into the pit.

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He fell for what seemed like years. He had no sense of his half-brother's presence anymore, Adam gone as though he had never been. There was just darkness and a sense of aloneness so powerful he released a wail of anguish. The sound was absorbed by the void, not even his own voice able to keep him company as he fell. His breathing picked up and he felt his heart pounding as the terror built. He struggled to remember his brother, to remember the reason he had come here, but there was nothing…the emptiness filling him and absorbing every thought and memory that might have provided comfort and hope.

Just when he thought he could stand it no longer, he became aware of the Other that fell with him. The sense of someone else with him did not give him any sense of relief, however. He recognized this presence, though he could remember nothing else, and he sensed the growing rage and hatred in his companion. It filled him with a bone deep fear, a fear that made him long for previous horror of being alone. Then, from all around him and somehow also inside him, a voice reverberated.

"You got what you wanted, Sammy. But I wonder if you are truly prepared for an eternity of Me..."

Terror filled every bone in his body. He struggled to run, every instinct screaming at him to flee. He was unable to move, however, and the voice laughed, reveling in his helplessness, the sound promising unending pain and vengeance. Opening his mouth, Sam screamed with everything inside him...

…and sat up with a jerk, his body flailing in confusion. At first, he was unable to make sense of where he was or what had happened, the fear singing through his veins clouding his vision and making him pant for air. Slowly, however, the quiet coolness of his surroundings began to calm his racing heart. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, mentally preparing himself for whatever he might see when he opened them.

He was not prepared for the memories that hit him when he recognized his surroundings. Visions filled his head of the events in Stull Cemetery, Bobby and Cas dead, his brother beaten to a bloody pulp and worst of all, falling with Lucifer his only companion. A sob left his throat as he realized he must have finally reached his destination. He was in the Cage with the Devil and it looked remarkably like….Bobby's panic room?

"What…?" Confusion forced some of the fear to the back of his mind. He couldn't understand why the Devil would choose to begin here. Perhaps because he hated this room with every bone in his body, both for the painful memories and the forced solitude and separation from Dean. Maybe Lucifer wanted to rub his face in the fact that he was eternally separated from Dean and go from there.

His fear built once more as he sat there waiting, waiting for what the Devil had in mind to make this room worse than even his memories could make it. The only sounds were his frightened gasps for breath and the steady whump of the fan far overhead. He waited and waited and…nothing happened.

Lucifer did not come and there was no sense of his presence as there had been while they were falling. Slowly, his breathing slowed and his eyes began to roam around the severe emptiness of the panic room. He became aware of an annoying ache in his arm and looked down to find an IV in his arm, the tubing leading up to a nearly empty bag of a clear liquid.

Frightened of what the Devil might be pumping into him, he ripped out the needle and hissed at the burn of pain and trickle of red from the injection site. Still nothing happened. No one showed up to punish him for his defiance, and whatever the substance in the IV had been, it did not seem to be affecting him much.

Taking another look around him, he saw what he had missed before. The door to the Panic Room stood open, the dingy clutter of Bobby's basement visible beyond. A trap perhaps? Maybe Lucifer was dangling freedom in front of him, daring him to try to grasp it. Somehow it made that open doorway both more attractive and terrifying...the hope warring with terror of having that hope yanked away from him. He had to find out.

Swinging himself around to get his legs on the floor proved more difficult than he expected. His entire body ached and his muscles felt like jelly. Somehow, those sensations set off alarm bells in a way everything else hadn't. He had expected pain in Hell, but weakness and a dull ache? Talk about anti-climactic. He was missing something and he thought about it as he sat there, head bowed, waiting for some strength to return. Nothing around him felt the least bit what he had been expecting. In fact, it felt much more like the previous times he had woken up in this place after…

What if...

The thoughts hit him like a cement truck. What if everything he remembered from Stull Cemetery had been a dream? What if he was coming to after another forced detox, and he had simply imagined…His mind scrambled at this idea, desperately poking at it for truth. Was the Devil still out there? Was their entire plan to get rid of him a product of demon blood hallucinations? Everything he and Dean had gone through, everything they had sacrificed…a dream?

No! Stull had been real. He felt that with a certainty he felt about very little in his life. He took a moment to hold on to that, his fists clenching and unclenching in an attempt to relieve the tension in his entire body. He had fallen into the Pit…this had to be Hell. What then was going on?

The answer was out that door. Part of him longed to take the solitude and relative lack of pain and find a place to hide where he could avoid whatever was coming for him. The other part of him was determined to face the consequences of his choice head on with the courage his brother would expect from him. He had to know. Gingerly he leveraged himself to his feet and crept past the solid iron door. Outside in the basement, he froze, half-expecting all of this fade or for demons or Lucifer to come crash the party at any moment, but all was quiet except for a murmur from ahead and up the stairs, a murmur of...voices?

He almost stopped right there, his eyes darting around for a place to hide. However, the voices did not appear to be getting any closer. Curious despite himself, he moved toward the steps and the only sounds of life he had encountered so far in this bizarre awakening. Whatever was going on, he was better off facing it and understanding it. The panic of not knowing was killing him.

He was half way up the stairs when he recognized one of the voices...a voice he knew as well or better than his own...a voice he had never expected to hear again. He gasped and froze, listening with everything in him.

Tears filled him and terror at a sudden thought rendered him immobile. He had feared reaching for freedom and having it yanked away. But being offered the chance to have Dean back...it would be the worst kind of torture to have that yanked away too. Yet he could no more resist moving toward that voice than a moth could avoid the lure of a flame.

Suddenly, he didn't care if it was a trick. The need to get to his brother superseded all others and he scrambled the rest of the way up the stairs. The sheer comfort and familiarity of his surroundings filled him with strength and hope. Still, when he reached the office doorway and laid eyes on the source of that voice for the first time, everything around him faded away. His world narrowed down to a single focus. Nothing else mattered. It could all be a trick and it would still be worth it.

"Dean?" he said, desperation, hope and an insufferable joy filling him.

And when his brother turned to face him, Sam knew that against all odds, despite everything logic was trying to force him to consider...he was home.

**The End**


End file.
